‘Terrifier’, the marginal horror saga for domestic format turned into a phenomenon

With a tiny budget the very modest ‘Terrifier 2’ was the great independent horror film surprise of 2022 in the United States. Premiered in Spain this Friday, February 24 (ideal time to look for where to see ‘Terrifier’ while its sequel causes fainting), the film, outside the commercial circuit and not even subject to the necessary age classification to be shown in conventional theaters, managed to collect between last October and November more than 10 million dollars in his country thanks to an anomalous route, described on the specialized website Box Office Mojo as a challenge to “the laws of gravity of the box office”: Despite being projected in just 700 theaters —a typical premiere in the US moves between 3,000 and 4,000 screens— and even further reducing its presence in the second week, it gradually grew until it was among the ten most watched worldwide. National territory.

Thanks to its predecessor, ‘Terrifier’ (2016), and the iconic murderer Art the Clown, the project had a certain previous fan base: in fact, the sequel enjoyed massive support via crowdfundingwith donations that quintupled the goal set by director Damien Leone through the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform. A total of $250,000 which, at a general level, has been erroneously interpreted as the definitive budget of ‘Terrifier 2’, despite the fact that Leone himself affirmed in the justification of crowdfunding in 2019 that he only needed that money for a very expensive scene and that he already had enough private investment to shoot the film “decently”. The true budget, therefore, is unknown but higher; and, in any case, much higher than the $35,000 that the first part officially cost.

What seems obvious is that many spectators who went to see ‘Terrifier 2’ in the midst of the outbreak of the phenomenon had not seen or known about the previous installment, whose popularity has far exceeded. In the best tradition of old horror movies underground projected in wicked sessions or video store tapes with abject cover that, overnight, became the most requested at the venue, Damien Leone’s film has gained notoriety based on curiosity and mouth-ear, with viewers in different theaters reporting all sorts of extreme reactions to the film. “My friend has fainted and the cinema has had to call an ambulance. Highly recommend!”, posted a user on Twitter, With an attached photo of the toilets attending to their seatmate who fell in combat. “I just saw ‘Terrifier 2’. The one behind me has fainted against my seat, another has left saying that he was not feeling well and when I left I heard a guy vomiting hard and loudly in the bathroom ”, another user wrote.

The party of the viscera

Both the filmmaker and the label that supported the film, the multimedia company Bloody Disgusting (a portal specialized in horror that has also carried out productions such as the ‘V/H/S’ anthology, from 2012), did not hesitate to echo what What was happening. In addition to sending the fainted friend’s tweeter a card wishing you well together with merchandising of the movie, for some sessions began handing out vomit bags, warning of “extreme violence and excessive gore” from ‘Terrifier 2’ and guaranteeing “gastrointestinal disorders”. A move that William Castle, famed horror producer who knew a lot about ticket-selling scares and parked ambulances outside theaters to instill a sense of danger, would have been proud of. The promotion with the bags has been replicated by the distributor in Spain, SelectaVisión.

“I would have loved if a couple of people left the room, those things are a medal of honor because it is an intense film. But I don’t want people to get hurt or pass out watching it. It’s surreal!” Damien Leone told Entertainment Weekly. In statements to The New York Times, He honestly acknowledged: “Sometimes you have to embrace exploitation, especially if you’re trying to get noticed. I am not pretending that we are not exploiting the violence in the film. We do. But that’s just how the movies I loved and grew up with are.”

Although it is by no means the first horror film with which something like this has happened —there was already, for example, a great commotion in 1973 with the fainting and vomiting of spectators in screenings of ‘The Exorcist’—, it cannot be said Indeed, that ‘Terrifier 2’ hides its attributes or tries to catch nobody off guard. With a duration of two hours and 20 minutes, it is difficult for a fan of gore Little does he know the catalog of mutilations, dismemberments, torture, cannibalism and atrocities against the human body committed by Art the Clown, that are the incentive of the film and its great reason for being.

Featured in the 2008 short ‘The 9th Circle’, Art the Clown has been with director Damien Leone for years. His first foray into feature film was not ‘Terrifier’, but ‘Halloween’s Eve’ (2013), a film that recycled material from previous works as episodes. The original actor, Mike Giannelli, retired from acting before the 2016 film, leading to the signing of David Howard Thornton. Despite the fact that terrifying clowns are one of the most hackneyed archetypes in contemporary cinema (to the renewed fame of ‘It’ with its double adaptation in 2017 and 2019, we must add the intense cinematographic presence of the Joker in the last decade and a half ), the interpreter and the director found a way to forge their own identity for their icon.

as a kind of Psycho version of Marcel Marceau, Art is a silent and histrionic clown, made up and dressed in black and white colors. Supernatural Evil Entity, his apparent invincibility makes him akin to legendary villains like Michael Myers from the ‘Halloween’ saga. Although the defining quality of him, really, is the brutality of him: No one who saw the first ‘Terrifier’, regardless of their opinion, could stop to talk about anything other than, from the outset, the radical and graphic cutting in half of one of the protagonists with a saw between her legs.

Oscar for Best Skinning

Besides of degree of detail with which Damien Leone portrays the particular work of Art the Clown, the dazzling handcrafted effects used in the two films are the other key attraction of the proposal. The images of ‘Terrifier’ and ‘Terrifier 2’ can generate rejection, but there is a whole art under that: if they are so disgusting, it is precisely because of how realistic the blood, the prostheses, the meat, the organs shown in them are. screen and the consequences of all kinds of horrible attacks on the skin. It is so admirable in that section that Bloody Disgusting decided, unsuccessfully, submit the film to the Oscars, arguing that the possibility of making “the members of the Academy have to put up with it” was something “too fun to pass up”.

Although probably not thinking of getting a Best Screenplay nomination as well, Leone gives the storytelling of ‘Terrifier 2’ a narrative twist on its predecessor. Those who did not connect with the abstract concretion of the chain of murders that basically made up the 2016 film have two cups of history in this sequel, which fully registers its coordinates in the field of fant-terror. Halfway between ‘The Lord of the Beasts’ (1982), an illustrated story for Heavy Metal magazine and an Italian horror film in its most insane declination such as ‘The Devil’s Spawn’ (1989), linked to the sense of the bloody exploitation of teachers like Herschell Gordon Lewis, ‘Terrifier 2’ responds to a model of cinema less interested in moderation or correction than in being enjoyed as a collective party, by and for fans.

The last thing you would think is that this is the work of a devoted son seeking to please his mother, but, in the case of Damien Leone, it does not seem to be very far from reality. Baptized by her a fan of classic movies and horror, in honor of the child who embodies the Antichrist in ‘The Prophecy’ (1976), Leone assured The New York Times that her mother was “proud” when she showed her the film, which does not exclude that she thought, apart, “beyond repulsive”, “yelled at” and “sweared at him like a trucker” while watching her.

In the midst of the endless debate about the survival of the theaters, their coexistence with the new forms of consumption and the concentration of power in the industry, and in the absence of knowing if they can repeat their success in Spain, ‘Terrifier 2’ has meant the confirmation that there is still an audience that is receptive to surprises, open to novelties and that looks beyond the titles that occupy the largest space in the market. With the not least feature that it is a horror movie. Precisely when the standardization of narrative styles, visual codes, staging and the reduction of art to content is most criticized, the genre has experienced an excellent commercial year based on heterodox, daring, varied titles and with voices very personal. Apart from the sociological explanations that are also given for the new impulse of terror in theaters and the desire to once again enjoy cathartic experiences in a group, the example of ‘Terrifier 2’ reminds us that the cinema can also be saved with splashes of red liquid, hyper-realistic headless mannequins, little money and a lot of passion.